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The effect of spontaneous mutations on competitive ability
Author(s) -
Schaack S.,
Allen D. E.,
Latta L. C.,
Morgan K. K.,
Lynch M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1111/jeb.12058
Subject(s) - biology , mutation , trait , mutation accumulation , competition (biology) , genetics , genetic fitness , mutation rate , evolutionary biology , gene , ecology , computer science , programming language
Understanding the impact of spontaneous mutations on fitness has many theoretical and practical applications in biology. Although mutational effects on individual morphological or life‐history characters have been measured in several classic genetic model systems, there are few estimates of the rate of decline due to mutation for complex fitness traits. Here, we estimate the effects of mutation on competitive ability, an important complex fitness trait, in a model system for ecological and evolutionary genomics, D aphnia . Competition assays were performed to compare fitness between mutation‐accumulation ( MA ) lines and control lines from eight different genotypes from two populations of D aphnia pulicaria after 30 and 65 generations of mutation accumulation. Our results show a fitness decline among MA lines relative to controls as expected, but highlight the influence of genomic background on this effect. In addition, in some assays, MA lines outperform controls providing insight into the frequency of beneficial mutations.